Cycling has come a long way since the early 1980s, when Moses tried, unsuccessfully, to part the St. Lawrence River so cyclists could travel between Montreal and the South Shore.

The man in the Moses costume was Robert “Bicycle Bob” Silverman, a Montreal cycling pioneer who helped found Le Monde à Bicyclette. Today, Montreal cyclists have access to 700 kilometres of bike paths and 5,200 Bixi bikes, and they’ll eventually be able to bike across the St. Lawrence on the new Champlain Bridge. They owe a debt to Le Monde à Bicyclette, which put cycling on the public agenda in the 1970s and 1980s, lobbying relentlessly and staging colourful publicity stunts, including the Moses episode, a Ste-Catherine St. die-in and civil disobedience on the métro.

Now 82, Silverman’s eyesight is failing but he still cycles near his Val-David home, about 200 meters away from a stretch of the Route Verte, Quebec’s network of bike trails. He lives in a bright, painting-filled loft dotted with reminders of his activist days: A miniature metal bike on the fridge. A framed black-and-white photo of himself carrying a Le Monde à Bicyclette flag in the 1980s. A large banner bearing an image of the other face of Le Monde à Bicyclette, the late Claire Morissette, after whom Montreal’s de Maisonneuve Blvd. bike path is named.

With Montreal bike paths officially open and Bixi season underway, the Montreal Gazette asked Silverman about his “vélorutionary” bike activism, the city’s transformation into a bike-friendly destination, and what more he would like to see done. (This interview has been edited and condensed.)

What was it like for cyclists when Le Monde à Bicyclette started in 1975?

There were virtually no facilities, it wasn’t even in the vocabulary. No bike paths, no bike parking. And we had a very anti-bike mayor, Jean Drapeau. All the budget went into cars and roads. Even worse than that, they destroyed houses to build things like the Ville-Marie Expressway. We needed bike paths, bike parking, access to the métro. (Breaks into a poem). Cars, cars everywhere, what a stink! / packed together / street by street / eliminating our feet / we had nothing to like / then, we rediscovered the bike … The car was usurping our space. We were cyclofrustrated and wanted to point out how crazy car reality was. It’s still crazy. Ever listen to the traffic report? The bridges are paralyzed, the streets are paralyzed. It’s madness.

Allowing bikes in the métro was one of your first goals — why was that so important and how did you get the transit authority to relent?

This was an easy thing to fix but it was very important. When a cyclist has a mechanical breakdown, a flat or there’s a thunderstorm and they’re in LaSalle and they have to get to Laval and they can’t get home, that’s a serious thing. We wrote to Lawrence Hanigan (head of Montreal’s transit authority at the time). He was very, very unsympathetic. He wrote back to say grease would go on the seats, grease would go on people’s pants and women’s skirts. There was this paranoia. Vélophobia. We had a massive demonstration — about 200 people — at Berri-de Montigny station (now Berri-UQAM). The ticket collectors didn’t know what to do. The next time, we entered from various stations, and we took big, heavy objects — ladders, skis … bikes were stopped but the objects got in. The third time, we were told by our lawyer, pay your tickets and when they ask you to leave, you don’t. We wanted to test the constitutionality of the internal rule against bikes. We got arrested and there was a trial. We lost in municipal court. On appeal, we won. The judge said there was nothing specific in the law against bikes. Hanigan announced publicly that we still wouldn’t be allowed. But that night, we went out and posted rules on the métro cars — take the last car and be very respectful of other riders. Two days later, Hanigan quietly changed the rule so you could take bikes on the métro on weekends. That was the first big victory.

“Bicycle Bob” Silverman wears a mask while cycling in traffic in Montreal in 1976.

They were cries from the heart. They were so much fun. We did a die-in in 1976 at Ste-Catherine and University Sts. We had a big leaflet that said, “Come die with us,” and a leaflet for the drivers who were stuck. Police were there and let us do it for 20 minutes. We wanted to draw attention to the fact that cars were taking all the space and all the money. After the honking there was total silence. It was really magic. We did the cyclodramas to call attention to the obvious and the unjust. Whether or not the cyclodramas helped that much, as Claire said, it built consciousness. We changed the mentality of the people. ‘These people are not crazy. These people are deprived of the right of safe transport.’ The media really picked up on it.

Allowing cyclists to travel between Montreal and the South Shore was a key objective. Why and what did you do to draw attention to the problem?

People who don’t cycle are not aware of the gigantic injustice of it. We live on an island and a considerable percentage of the population bicycles and many people live on the South Shore. You have five bridges for cars and no bridges for bikes, as if cyclists don’t exist. (In 1977), the Jacques Cartier Bridge sidewalk used by cyclists collapsed and they closed it for a week. The bridge authority said it wasn’t a priority so we decided to have an action and announced it publicly. We walked with our bicycles to the middle of the bridge. We had walkie-talkies and we met in the middle and played a bit of volleyball. About 40 people. We blocked the bridge for awhile. It was really a beautiful demonstration. It was on Sunday, they put down wooden planks so bikes could use it again on Saturday. The threat of the demonstration was enough. It was very, very successful. After we got the métro rule change, all the emphasis went on the South Shore. We wanted a link between St. Lambert and Île Notre-Dame. We once put a bike on a canoe and sent it across the (St-Lawrence) river. We thought of getting Moses to help us as he did the Jews in the Bible needing to get across the Red Sea. Two of us dressed up as Moses. We had the 10 Commandments. But it was the lobbying that won it — we had the support of MNAs and MPs and resolutions from municipalities. (After years of protests and lobbying, the missing link — a $550,000 cycle bridge near the Victoria span- opened in 1990).

Bob Silverman, left, stands with his bicycle with other cycling activists on the Longueuil platform of the Ile-Sainte-Hélène métro station (now Jean-Drapeau), circa 1978.

Is it true you once spent time in jail for painting a bike path on a city street?

There was no bike path so we decided to paint our own. In 1975, we painted Marie-Anne and St-Urbain Sts. It was a warm night. We had about 10 people with rollers and no one was caught. The second time we painted the street, in 1980, I was arrested. A squealer called the police. I was arrested and there was a trial and I was convicted. I got a fine of $25 or eight days in jail. I refused to pay and went to Bordeaux prison. They let me out after three days.

What do you think when you see how much has changed for Montreal cyclists since the 1970s?

It brings tears to my eyes. Especially the Bixi. It’s such a great idea. It started in Montreal and now it’s in Melbourne, London, New York. It was one of our plans back in 1975 — to have collective bikes around the city that people could use. We gave a bike to Mayor Jean Drapeau and the executive committee and it was supposed to be the first one of the collective bikes. Now the Bixi came and we have collective bikes. Even a request that seemed so crazy, it came in. Bixi is not expensive, it’s accessible, it grows every year. Now, Montreal is now known as a bike city, bike tourists come here because of the bike paths. I’m very pleased Montreal is considered in the top 30 bike cities in the world. It makes my life seem worthwhile.

What still needs to be done to make Montreal a more bikeable city?

There’s a lot of lip service paid to cycling but it’s still very low on the agenda. There’s a lot more to do. Cyclists should be able to use the Mercier Bridge. The Jacques-Cartier Bridge path shouldn’t close in the winter. They should improve snow clearing of paths. The police don’t do enough to enforce road rules. We need another north-south access in the west and another in the east. Fund these things instead of the massive amounts that go to driving and car-related things that damage the city, kill people, wound people, make the city unbreathable. We continue to build this idiotic Turcot — I don’t know what the hell they’re doing. It’s going to cost another $3 billion. It’s madness to give so much money to the car. There’s generally one person in every car, they take up so much space, they’re all stuck. They give 90 per cent of the money to the worst form of transport. They give it to noise and to ugliness and to death. It’s absolutely crazy. The transport ministry should be called the ministry of destruction.

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